In mobile phone and other communications systems where the phone number of a calling party is conveyed to a called party, those mobile phones are used which are capable of conveying, in response to an incoming call, information on the calling party based on settings specified by a user in advance. For example, if the mobile phone has an address book where the mobile phone user has saved combinations of phone numbers and names, the mobile phone searches the address book for a name which matches the calling party's phone number received together with an incoming call and, if there is a match, displays that name. The user is thereby notified of the name of the calling party and can decide whether to accept the call by, for example, guessing its importance beforehand. Some new mobile phones are capable of displaying a portrait, as well as the name, of the calling party by additionally storing portraits in the address book.
There are also mobile phones in use equipped with an address book which may allow the mobile phone user to separate the phone numbers into groups and assign a different jingle to a different group. The phone will search the address book for a match based on the calling party's phone number and replay the jingle of the group to which the phone number belongs. The user can tell one group from another by the jingles.
These conventional technologies inevitably require that settings be made on the called end to make reference to the address book in the mobile phone at the called end. Setting up becomes increasingly bothersome as more and more people are added to the address book.
These problems are particularly serious with recent mobile phones and other communications devices capable of displaying character images and animation. Although the devices provide a wider variety of expressions which are easily and intuitively distinguishable, the creation of an intuitively identifiable character image or animation for each calling party tends to require increasing amounts of work.